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Backlog at Port of Pajaritos Leads to Oil Tanker Rate Surge

FREIGHT

Oil tanker rates have surged for Aframax tankers from Mexico to the US Gulf Coast amid a backlog of nine vessels at the Mexican port of Pajaritos, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

  • Ships are waiting to load 4.5 million barrels of medium sour Isthmus crude oil for refineries in the US and Korea.
  • Vessels have been piling up as Pemex has been struggling to fully return oil production to levels seen before a platform blast on 7 July and an unrelated oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.
  • The most recent rate for the Pajaritos-USGC route, which is not quoted in the Baltic Exchange, was reported Wednesday when Marathon provisionally booked a tanker to load this month for WS 127.5, or around $1.16/bbl according to Bloomberg calculations and fixture reports. This was up from WS 102.5 last week.
  • Earlier this month, Pemex CEO Octavio Romero said the state oil company still needs to produce 20k b/d to recover normal output after the blast.

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